Yes, it's very likely I said that once
You can also get Word to give you the character count by clicking on the word count located in the status bar at the bottom left. Character Count (incl. spaces) is the number you're looking for. It's possible that this also adds the number of characters from the comments, plus, line breaks in plain text file get counted as two characters. But it's a close approximation that should hold up except for edge cases when you're right on the brink between two sizes.
Michael
